Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #31812 in Home Improvement

Customer Reviews

A good cheap pencil torch
I purchased this pencil torch for quick and portable soldering (wires/electrical). Needless to say, it works like a charm. It heats up parts almost instantly and solders beautifully. There are only a few problems. First, when you're soldering, you have to be careful not have any particles (for example bits of solder) fly into the orifice and clog it. There is a quick and easy solution, you just unscrew the orifice and spray a blast of butane through the orifice in reverse and it'll blow the clog out.
Problem number 2 was that the valve can get leaky if you press sideways on it a lot (which can happen when you're holding it like a pencil). This results in a leak forming when you push (or hold it like that) and then the leak will ignite and a plume of flame will flash across your hand. It's not too dangerous and doesn't last long enough to burn more than the tips of hairs, but still not a good thing.

In all, this is a very cheap, very easy torch. I like mine a lot, and I would suggest buying 2 (one for backup).

Also, this does not have an igniter, you need a lighter or match to ignite the jet. Try to ignite the butane at the base of the jet.

pain in the a**
clogs way to easily. every 2 or 3 times of use you need to remove the tip and back flush with butane. I did use cheap butane though. I would try using a triple refined brand of butane and see if that helps.

Good when it works, but it doesn't for long
The torch is inexpensive and performs well, the problem is however that it fails far too quickly. It probably is simple clogging, but I haven't mastered the art of squirting butane through the nozzle to clear the path. What is more, in my case the problem actually prevented the torch from being able to shut completely; I turned the screw and then had to wait for a few seconds for the gas flow to slowly die.

The torch was cheap enough for me to go and buy a second one, but in the end both torches I've owned failed in a similar way within less than 5 refills. I haven't used the same brand butane so it's less likely that poor fuel was a factor.

In fairness, the instructions do warn of this problem and suggest a solution, but it hasn't worked for me and it's a nuisance either way. I'd suggest you try a different product.